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Archbishop Desmond Tutu was one of the three indispensable people whose actions saved South Africa from a violent transition when that country went to majority rule.  He created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an alternative to prosecutions and vengeance.  He also believed that the Black struggle in South Africa and the Palestinians struggle were very parallel.  He once said, we cannot be free if they are not free. 

I hope you will find this podcast to be  morally challenging and rewarding. 

Note:  I have a previous podcast on Nelson Mandela and am working on a podcast on F. W. De Klerk.   I also have a podcast entitled Confessions of a Former Terrorist, mentioned during the current podcast. 

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Christmas Songs:  Who?  What?  When? Where? 

This is a discussion of the fifty-one most popular Christmas songs, when they were written, what themes they contain, and how the patterns of favorite Christmas songs changed over the centuries. 

This is short, but you might find it an interesting approach to Christmas songs.  Please remember I am a social scientist.  I count things for a living. 

I hope you enjoy this. 

And don’t forget, “melekelekemaka is the island way . . . “ 

(And I hope you will forgive my inept efforts to sing a couple of those songs). 

Question:  Do you wonder what would emerge is someone did this analysis is another country:  England, Spain, Brazil, Palestine, Lebanon, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Albania, Nigeria.  Hmm. 

ps.  Someone pointed out that this list skips Carley Simon's song, All I want for Christmas is You.  That certainly makes the point, that there are demographic factors at work in this list. 

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When John XXIII became pope in 1958, he was a compromise choice.  The powerful cardinals who wanted the job figured they could choose the elderly and sickly Cardinal  Roncalli of Venice.  They suspected he would not last long and then they could step in.  Little did they know that he would become one of the most significant popes.  

John decided that the church had become stuffy and the windows needed to be opened to let in some fresh air.  He convened all the bishops to Rome to began a process of deliberation that would lead to the transformation of the church.   He died before that process was  finished but his right-hand man, Cardinal Montini, soon to be Pope Paul VI, carried the task to its finish. 

This is the story of what happened and what changes were made. 

The right wing elements of the hierarchy decided to bite their tongues and bide their time until they could undo what they saw as serious errors.  They are the bishops and cardinals who are fighting Pope Francis today. 

Curious factoid:   The body of John XXIII is on display in the Vatican.  It is sitting out where tourists such as myself can take photos.  I was a bit shocked at this display until I read the explanation.  Because John became a saint, he is now a "relic" so that body on display is not his body but the equivalent of the piece of the cross that I saw in Vienna.  (Note: The sign with that piece of wood said that the Church had never been able to verify the authenticity of the splinter but that it has given encouragement to believers over the ages and for that reason the Church is pleased to keep it on display) 

Note:  You do not have to be a Catholic to find this a fascinating topic. 

Note II.  This was a zoom lecture in the fall of 2020. 

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On December 1, 2021 the Supreme Court heard arguments on the Mississippi law that would effectively gut Roe vs Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion. 

This podcast discusses those arguments and some of the issues surrounding that case.  There is a discussion of Roe and also of Casey, the Supreme Court case that allowed modifications of Roe.  There is a discussion of some constitutional principles, of data on abortion, and of public opinion on the issues.  There is also a summary of the arguments by the two sides and of the political implications of whatever comes next.  

Let me say this is the most difficult podcast I have ever prepared.  I was very determined to give you an accurate summary of the issues, including the legal terms, the medical terms, and the political arguments.  I had read Roe v Wade at least three times in the past (and had made notes in the margins) and had read quite a bit about the broader issues when I had lectured on the topic.    I started with a body of knowledge that made me feel confident.  But issues kept coming up, and I wanted to get everything right. 

I am grateful to my wife Jane for her help with medical terminology, and for her remarkable editing skills.  Often the difference between an acceptable talk and a good talk is how carefully words are used.  I hope you find this to be a good talk that is informative. 

The longer commentary was by Jacob Kahn. 

The court will probably hand down its decision in the spring, maybe around June of 2022.  

Just as we are gearing up for the 2022 mid-term elections. 

Strap on your seat belts.  

(Oops.  A glitch.  I repeated a comment about the derogatory comparison of Roe v Wade with Plessey v Ferguson, the infamous pro-segregation ruling in 1896.  Well, the argument is so offensive, and  irritated me enough that saying it twice is not really that bad.  Anyway, it's only two sentences so it won't slow you down much).  

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• ing a Church 

Littlefield Avenue Presbyterian congregation has existed for 91 years.  On November 21, 2021 we closed the church building for good.  While the membership was fading, it was really the floods of 2021 that made the decision necessary.  In Presbyterian terminology, what happened is called decommissioning.  To Presbyterians a building is just a building until it is dedicated for a religious purpose.  It remains a religious space until it is decommissioned.  Then it is once again just a building.  The congregation survives, but it is now a congregation without a building, and without a clear idea of what comes next. 

But the purpose of this podcast is really to talk of the history of this congregation, and of the significant role it played in working with the Arab/Muslim community, especially in the 1970s and 1980s.  In those decades Lebanon was being torn apart by conflict and refugee were coming to Dearborn in large numbers.  Those refugees were traumatized and disorganized and were facing serious resistance from local people.   Littlefield decided they would be allies (is that the word?).  They would support the Arab community and would help them to build their institutions.  They would try to educate the public, and would speak against injustice and hostile stereotyping. 

And after September 11, the importance of the congregation became even more significant. 

This is the story of that congregation, and what it meant to the members and to the broader community.  

This is posted with great appreciation for Reverend Nancy Bass, who came in to help us decide what to do next and then found herself presiding over catastrophic damage to the building itself.  She was an indispensable person.  We could not have worked through this without her unique skills.  

Update:  A friend with more experience than I have reminded me that the original name was Littlefield Boulevard Church.  It was changed to Littlefield Presbyterian Church in 1983 when the Presbyterian Church reorganized itself.  

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Memorable Students 

Did you ever wonder how life looks from the other side of the desk?  This is your chance to find out. 

During my last semester, my wife suggested that I prepare two farewell lectures discussing my career.  One would focus upon Memorable Students, one upon Memorable People I have encountered.  This is the talk on Memorable Students.  

This was a zoom lecture for my classes.  It was recorded on my computer so the sound is not perfect.  You may have to turn up the volume to hear well.  

A couple points of clarification.  

For those who are not familiar with Dearborn, Henry Ford Community College (now College) is just next to my campus.  I make reference to two colleagues who taught there.  

I discuss two students who were upset and disappeared but then returned later.  Both are success stories. 

I discuss two students that I did not like but who got in touch with me later.  

I mentioned an incident in which there was a bombing of the La Belle Discotheque in Berlin in 1986. That was a place where American soldiers would hang out.  Three died and 229 were injured, some seriously.  One of my students was in that place when the attack occurred.  After September 11 he began to have PTSD flash backs.  

The NSA had intercepted communications indicating that Libya was behind that attack (presumably in revenge for the earlier U.S. bombing of two Libyan  ships).  The U. S. conducted retaliation bombings into Libya.  One of those hit Muamar Ghadafi’s house and killed one of his children. Libya later acknowledged responsibility and  paid a settlement to the victims and their families in an effort to improve relations with the U. S.  In the end, we participated in his overthrow (and death). 

The more complex story is of my strangest student.  I will avoid her real name and use her preferred pseudonym, Ms. Montezuma.  She called herself The Daughter of The South because she believed she was the daughter of Montezuma, the famous Aztec ruler killed by the Spanish in 1520.  In discussing this student, I mention the Book of Revelation in the Bible.  She saw herself as a part of things mentioned in that book.  I also use the term exquisite sensitivity, meaning the ability to read people’s psyche and to feed back to them what they need to hear so as to convince them to trust you and give you what you want. (For those who know how the human mind works, I apologize for my armchair analysis).  

Note that my talk on September 11 has its own podcast.  In fact two, with the talk being in the second one focusing on September 13 and after. 

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Biography of a Graveyard 

Back in 2001 I had just published a book and had no projects on my plate.  I decided to use part of my summer to create an inventory of all of the gravestones in my home town graveyard.  This is Horse Prairie graveyard in Sesser, Illinois about 500 miles south of Detroit.  It is a very lovely graveyard, surrounded by farmland and rolling hills.  It is where many of my relatives are buried  -- grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins, and now parents.  I also have a gravestone there waiting for my arrival.  

When I got back home my wife noticed that I had birth and death dates from most of those stones and could easily create an Excel  spreadsheet that would help me detect patterns. 

 Indeed!  

That was what I did.  In the end I produced three publications from this project, one in an academic journal, one in a collection of writings on how professors do research, and one a full book on everything I learned about these people and their history. 

What I learned covered history, culture, religion, personal stories, mortality, gender differences, age differences, disease and inoculation,  human tragedy, and so much more. 

I also learned what every researcher learns, that many of your beginning assumptions are wrong.  

 I think you will enjoy this. 

Two Notes 

Jane was invaluable in this project.  After I had  typed up a draft of everything I had recorded from the gravestones,  she returned with me to walk the graveyard and to go through the stones one last time, stone by stone, to make sure I had all the facts and inscriptions correct. 

Not only is she a very precise person but she has an amazing ability to read faded stones. 

And a slightly sad update:  My collaborator on this project, Clara Crocker Brown, died in mid-2021.  She was just a couple of weeks short of 100 years of age.  She died at home.   She came to our town when she was a little girl and married a local man but she always felt she was new.  Still, she devoted many years of her life to walking graveyards and recording the information that she found.  So much that she found would have been lost had she not done what she did.  

There are many good things in life that will never get done unless someone says, "If nobody else is going to do this, I will do it myself."  

She was a remarkable woman. 

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Rerum Novarum

For those of you who are Catholics, I have bad news for you.  There was a time in the 1800s when your church went over the edge, in terms of what you value today.  It renounced reading of unapproved books, it renounced what you would think of as education, it renounced curiosity, and it even renounced the existence of Germany and Italy.  (The pope had a vested interest in the non-existence of Italy given that he was the ruler of his own state, which got absorbed into Italy.  Anyone who voted in an Italian election or served the Italian state in any way was excommunicated.  To be honest they made themselves irrelevant, so that large numbers of Italians marched away from the church.   This is called anti-clerical).  

This 1891 encyclical, by Leo XIII, one of the great popes, reversed that disastrous tendency, and tried to drag the Church into the modern age. 

An encyclical is important not because it repeats what the Church has already said – the rich should give charity to the poor.  That's not new – but because it says something the Church has never said before.  These are called New Teachings.  This encyclical has three new teachings.  Those are identified along the way. 

An encyclical is an official teaching by the pope.  The word means Letter and borrows from the epistles (letters) of Paul in the New Testament.  

Encyclicals have numbered paragraphs to make it easier to discuss.  The podcast makes reference to those numbers throughout. 

It is possible to listen to this podcast without the text in front of you, but this is a case where I would recommend that you download the encyclical and read along.  I will attach a link. 

This was a class lecture.  

How would we classify this pope?  He is definitely a classical conservative in the sense of Disraeli.  He clearly has Lockean impulses.  He is a cultural conservative in the sense of gender issues.  He is NOT a Ronald Reagan conservative. (“The most frightening words in the English language are, I’m from the government and I’m here to help”).   He clearly wants to save the capitalist system and to reinforce the power structure and make it work more effectively.  He feels a bit of nostalgia for the past but is realistic that we cannot turn back history.  He wants the Church to play a role in the future in terms of creating and shaping parties and unions.  

Would you call him a paternalistic Disraeli cautious reformer?  That is an awkward term but I can’t think of any that is better. 

Note:  I think the Pope was answering the Communist Manifesto, even though he never mentions Marx.  See if you agree. 

http://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum.html

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Some decades ago, I was involved in a church that had a destructive conflict.  Congregational and regional officials mismanaged the conflict in a way that escalated it.  The conflict went through an ecclesiastical court system. (Few members even knew such courts existed, much less that individual members could file accusations against other  members).  There were formal accusations, and counter-accusations.  Ultimately the conflict ended up in the civil courts.  The damage was deep and serious. 

Let me repeat something reported in the podcast:  Even though gender issues were central to this case, there was not a single report of any exchange of fluids.  In a sense, that makes the case even more interesting.  Sexual misconduct without physical sexual contact.  

The story of this project is interesting. I am by nature a pack rat so every time some document appeared I threw it into a folder.  This included even monthly newsletters or an annual report but also policy documents and official rulings.   When the formal processes had exhausted themselves and the pastor was gone, I decided to write a Briefing Document to send to the national headquarters to describe what had happened.  I thought that might do some good. That initial report was 40+ pages long, single spaced.  But something unexpected occurred. 

My friend John, a fellow political science professor in another college, had a heart attack.  As he was recovering, I went by to see him.  When I walked in, I said, “John, how are you doing?”  John was delightfully blunt in his manner and so was his response:  “I am doing fine.  What the hell is going on in your church?’  It turned out that someone in the congregation who was his friend had stopped by and told him everything she knew.  John and I  sat for two hours discussing the details.  Then he said, “This deserves a book, and you would be able to write it.”  

With John as my advisor, I set out on the project.  The more I wrote, the more I realized I needed additional information.  I read extensively about Presbyterian polity,  sexual misconduct policy (including federal court cases),  feminist writings, Presbyterian political history and governance issues (a branch of law), and quite a bit of administrative law (how policy is implemented in local institutions). After three years, I produced a book, “Decent and in Order:  Conflict, Christianity and Polity in a Presbyterian Congregation.” 

This was a time when sexual misconduct issues in the Catholic Church were exploding and the Church was paying  hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.  On one point, there is a fundamental difference between Catholic and Protestant cases.  Catholic misconduct typically involves a priest and a  same sex minor. Protestant cases typically involve a male pastor and an adult female.  However, patterns of cover up and denominational malfunction are similar. As the distinguished Catholic scholar Father Andrew Greeley noted in his introduction to the book Bad Pastors, “I want to thank Professor Stockton for showing me that another denomination can mishandle a problem as badly as my own.” 

I think some observations in this analysis  go beyond religious bodies.  As someone who has followed sexual misconduct issues in universities for decades, the same malfunctions are there – redefine the problem, blame the victim, guilt-trip and try to buy off those harmed.  And focus upon the good things the institution achieves, things that might be damaged if these stories got out, and payments were extracted.  Mona Hanna-Attisha’s superb book on the Flint Water Crisis (What the Eyes Don't See) notes the same patterns.  It is as if there is a shared mindset